“
The world is merciless, and it's also very beautiful.
”
”
Hajime Isayama
“
We're going to explore the outside world someday, right? Far beyond these walls, there's flaming water, land made of ice, and fields of sand spread wide. It's the world my parents wanted to go to.
”
”
Hajime Isayama (Attack on Titan, Vol. 2)
“
All was forgiven.
All living things were brothers, and all dead things were even more so.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (The Sirens of Titan)
“
It was the heaviest thing I'd ever felt, as if I were being crushed under a thousand trucks. I wanted to black out from the pain, but I breathed deeply. I can do this.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
“
I do not know how much they see through the Mist. I doubt it would matter to them if they knew the truth. Sometimes mortals can be more horrible than monsters.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
“
The nine Greek Muses, awakened again for this generation of man and meant to inspire mankind forward in the sciences and the arts.
”
”
Lisa Kessler (Lure of Obsession (Muse Chronicles, #1))
“
Inspiration before intercourse.
”
”
Lisa Kessler (Lure of Obsession (Muse Chronicles, #1))
“
The Order of the Titans had agreed with his assessment. This generation, the Order would be successful where previous generations had failed, because this time they would steal mankind's inspiration. They would kill the muses for the greater good....
For the good of mankind.
”
”
Lisa Kessler (Lure of Obsession (Muse Chronicles, #1))
“
Zoe—" I said.
"Stars," she whispered. "I can see the stars again, my lady."
A tear trickled down Artemis's cheek. "Yes, my brave one. They are beautiful tonight."
"Stars," Zoe repeated. Her eyes fixed on the night sky. And she did not move again.
Thalia lowered her head. Annabeth gulped down a sob, and her father put his hands on her shoulders. I watched as Artemis cupped her hand above Zoe's mouth and spoke a few words in Ancient Greek. A silvery wisp of smoke exhaled from Zoe's lips and was caught in the hand of the goddess. Zoe's body shimmered and disappeared.
Artemis stood, said a kind of blessing, breathed into her cupped hand and released the silver dust to the sky. It flew up, sparkling, and vanished.
For a moment I didn't see anything different. Then Annabeth gasped. Looking up in the sky, I saw that the stars were brighter now. They made a pattern I had never noticed before—a gleaming constellation that looked a lot like a girl's figure—a girl with a bow, running across the sky.
"Let the world honor you, my Huntress," Artemis said. "Live forever in the stars.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
“
Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even only four lines from this Discourse, reciting, using, receiving, retaining and spreading them abroad and explaining them for the benefit of others, it will be far more meritorious. Now in what manner may he explain them to others? By detachment from appearances-abiding in Real Truth. -So I tell you-
Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
When Buddha finished this Discourse the venerable Subhuti, together with the bhikshus, bhikshunis, lay-brothers and sisters, and the whole realms of Gods, Men and Titans, were filled with joy by His teaching, and, taking it sincerely to heart they went their ways.
”
”
Gautama Buddha (Diamond Sutra)
“
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.
”
”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (Prometheus Unbound)
“
There is always a way for those clever enough to find it.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
“
This world is a cruel place
cruel
and beautiful...
”
”
Hajime Isayama (Attack on Titan, Vol. 2)
“
Let them know men did this.
”
”
Mads Mikkelsen, Clash of the Titans [2010]
“
Flirting and foreplay came easy to Erica. Before she’d turned twenty, Erato awakened inside her. Erato was the Greek Muse of Lyrics… and Erotic Poetry. She had a gift for inspiring passion.
”
”
Lisa Kessler (Breath of Passion (Muse Chronicles, #3))
“
Even the greatest monsters couldn’t inspire fear like an old woman who was plotting something.
”
”
Andrew Rowe (On the Shoulders of Titans (Arcane Ascension, #2))
“
After much effort to live up to a glorious standard there came fatigue, wan hope, and boredom. I experienced extreme boredom. I saw others experiencing it too, many denying, by the way, that any such thing existed. And finally I decided that I would make boredom my subject matter. That I'd study it. That I'd become the world's leading authority on it. March, that was a red-letter day for humanity. What a field! What a domain! Titanic! Promethean! I trembled before it. I was inspired. I couldn't sleep. Ideas came in the night and I wrote them down, volumes of them. Strange that no one had gone after this systematically.
Oh, melancholy, yes, but not modern boredom.
”
”
Saul Bellow (The Adventures of Augie March)
“
People don’t seem to realize
it that it is not like we’re on
the Titanic and we have to
avoid the iceberg. We’ve
already hit the iceberg. The
water is rushing in down below. But some people just
don’t want to leave the dance
floor; others don’t want to
give up on the buffet. But if
we don’t make the hard
choices, nature will make them for u
”
”
Peter Adejimi
“
Constant was a male and Mrs. Rumfoord was a female, and Constant imagined that he had the means of demonstrating, if given the opportunity, his unquestionable superiority.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (The Sirens of Titan)
“
He ransacked his memory like a thief going through another man's billfold.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (The Sirens of Titan)
“
Get the picture of the future
”
”
Titan Rahadian
“
iceberg reported ahead,behappy about titanic
”
”
Oshada
“
I couldn’t speak, but I brought out Riptide and put the pen in her hand. She grasped it contentedly. ‘You spoke the truth, Percy Jackson. You are nothing like… like Hercules. I am honoured that you carry this sword.’
A shudder ran through her body.
‘Zoë –’ I said.
‘Stars,’ she whispered. ‘I can see the stars again, my lady.’
A tear trickled down Artemis’s cheek. ‘Yes, my brave one. They are beautiful tonight.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
“
I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen or, who I’m gonna meet, where I’m gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life’s a gift and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you… to make each day count.
”
”
Jack Dawson - Titanic
“
Tener una vida extraordinaria es simple. No es fácil, pero es simple. Los secretos para alcanzarla existen desde hace cientos de años y han sido aplicados por muchos Titanes a lo largo de la historia: Confucio, Hipócrates, Alejandro Magno, Leonardo Da Vinci, Miguel de Cervantesetc.,”
“Living an extraordinary life is simple. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. Its secrets have been around for hundreds of years and have been applied by Titans throughout history: Confucius, Hippocrates, Alexander the Great, Leonardo Da Vinci, Miguel de Cervantes etc.,
”
”
Yegli
“
Be fair, my friends! To be the empire of such an emperor, what a splendid destiny for a nation, when that nation is France, and when it adds its genius to the genius of such a man ! To appear and to reign, to march and to triumph, to have every capital for a staging area, to take his grenadiers and make kings of them, to decree the downfall of dynasties, to transfigure Europe at a double quickstep, so men feel, when you threaten, that you are laying your hand on the hilt of God’s sword, to follow in one man Hannibal , Caesar, and Charlemagne, to be the people of a man who mingles with your every dawn the glorious announcement of a battle won, to be wakened in the morning by the cannon of the Invalides, to hurl into the vault of day mighty words that blaze forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, lena, Wagram ! To repeatedly call forth constellations of victories at the zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire the successor of the Roman Empire, to be the grand nation and to bring forth the Grand Army, to send your legions flying across the whole earth as a mountain sends out its eagles, to vanquish, to rule, to strike thunder, to be for Europe a kind of golden people through glory, to sound through history a Titan’s fanfare, to conquer the world twice, by conquest and by resplendence, that is sublime. What could be greater?"
"To be free," said Combeferre.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
So much of the job is more emotion and ‘heart work’ than it is ‘head work.’ The head comes in after, to look at what the heart has presented and to organize it. But the initial inspiration comes from a different place, and it’s not the head, and it’s not an intellectual activity.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
Desde el momento en que nacemos, todos nosotros...somos libres.
Rechazar eso, incluso si no eres lo suficientemente fuerte, no es algo que piense hacer.
Incluso la brillante agua, o las vastas tierras de hielo...todo está bien.
Para poder ver lo que sigue más adelante. Está en mis manos ser libre.
Lucha. Una vida utilizada para eso es algo de lo que no me arrepentiré.
No importa cómo de terrorífico pueda ser el mundo, eso es algo que no me importa.
No importa que tan cruel sea el mundo, es algo que no me preocupa.
¡Lucha!, ¡¡Lucha!!, ¡¡LUCHA!!
”
”
Hajime Isayama (Attack on Titan, Vol. 4)
“
And it was said that when Love reunited with Passion, all the terrible things that were done out of love, without passion, or out of passion, without love, came to an end. And it was also said that from that moment on, all the Gods, Titans, Giants, Nymphs & Mortal people began making love with passion.
The 6,000 offspring of Oceanus & Tethys were usually explained as the result of making love without passion, or sometimes, as the result of passion without love. But when Love reunited with Passion, Oceanus & Tethys ceased having offspring altogether.
”
”
Nicholas Chong
“
Three miles from my adopted city
lies a village where I came to peace.
The world there was a calm place,
even the great Danube no more
than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape
by a girl’s careless hand. Into this stillness
I had been ordered to recover.
The hills were gold with late summer;
my rooms were two, plus a small kitchen,
situated upstairs in the back of a cottage
at the end of the Herrengasse.
From my window I could see onto the courtyard
where a linden tree twined skyward —
leafy umbilicus canted toward light,
warped in the very act of yearning —
and I would feed on the sun as if that alone
would dismantle the silence around me.
At first I raged. Then music raged in me,
rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp, and whatever I’d missed —
larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd’s
home-toward-evening song — rushed in, and I
would rage again.
I am by nature a conflagration;
I would rather leap
than sit and be looked at.
So when my proud city spread
her gypsy skirts, I reentered,
burning towards her greater, constant light.
Call me rough, ill-tempered, slovenly— I tell you,
every tenderness I have ever known
has been nothing
but thwarted violence, an ache
so permanent and deep, the lightest touch
awakens it. . . . It is impossible
to care enough. I have returned
with a second Symphony
and 15 Piano Variations
which I’ve named Prometheus,
after the rogue Titan, the half-a-god
who knew the worst sin is to take
what cannot be given back.
I smile and bow, and the world is loud.
And though I dare not lean in to shout
Can’t you see that I’m deaf? —
I also cannot stop listening.
”
”
Rita Dove
“
Everything that you thought had meaning: every hope, dream, or moment of happiness. None of it matters as you lie bleeding out on the battlefield. None of it changes what a speeding rock does to a body, we all die. But does that mean our lives are meaningless? Does that mean that there was no point in our being born? Would you say that of our slain comrades? What about their lives? Were they meaningless? They were not! Their memory serves as an example to us all! The courageous fallen! The anguished fallen! Their lives have meaning because we the living refuse to forget them! And as we ride to certain death, we trust our successors to do the same for us! Because my soldiers do not buckle or yield when faced with the cruelty of this world! My soldiers push forward! My soldiers scream out! My soldiers RAGE!
”
”
Hajime Isayama (進撃の巨人 20 [Shingeki no Kyojin 20])
“
with the KABIRI. And we have shown that the latter were the same as the Manus, the Rishis and our Dhyan Chohans, who incarnated in the Elect of the Third and Fourth Races. Thus, while in Theogony the Kabiri-Titans were seven great gods: cosmically and astronomically the Titans were called Atlantes, because, perhaps, as Faber says, they were connected (a) with At-al-as "the divine Sun," and (b) with tit "the deluge." But this, if true, is only the exoteric version. Esoterically, the meaning of their symbols depends on the appellation, or title, used. The seven mysterious, awe-inspiring great gods—the Dioscuri,[420] the deities surrounded with the darkness of occult nature—become the Idei (or Idaeic finger) with the adept-healer by metals. The true etymology of the name lares (now signifying "ghosts") must be sought in the Etruscan word "lars," "conductor," "leader." Sanchoniathon translates the word Aletae as fire worshippers, and Tabor believes it derived from Al-Orit, "the god of fire." Both are right, as in both cases it is a reference to the Sun (the highest God), toward whom the planetary gods "gravitate" (astronomically and allegorically) and whom they worship. As Lares, they are truly the Solar Deities, though Faber's etymology, who says that "lar" is a contraction of "El-Ar," the solar deity, is not very correct. They are the "lares," the conductors and leaders of men. As Aletae, they were the seven planets -- astronomically; and as Lares, the regents of the same, our protectors and rulers—mystically. For purposes of exoteric or phallic worship, as also cosmically, they were the Kabiri, their attributes being recognised in these two capacities by the name of the temples to which they respectively belonged, and those of their priests. They all belonged, however, to the Septenary creative and informing groups of Dhyan Chohans. The Sabeans, who worshipped the "regents of the Seven planets" as the Hindus do their Rishis, held Seth and his son Hermes (Enoch or Enos) as the highest among the planetary gods. Seth and Enos were borrowed from the Sabeans and then disfigured by the Jews (exoterically); but the truth can still be traced about them even in Genesis.[421] Seth is the "progenitor" of those early men of the Third Race in whom the "Planetary" angels had incarnated—a Dhyan Chohan himself, who belonged to the informing gods; and Enos (Hanoch or Enoch) or Hermes, was said to be his son—because it was a generic name for all the early Seers ("Enoichion"). Thence the worship. The Arabic writer Soyuti says that the earliest records mention Seth, or Set, as the founder of Sabeanism; and therefore that the pyramids which embody the planetary system were regarded as the place of sepulchre of both Seth and Idris (Hermes or Enoch), (See Vyse, "Operations," Vol. II., p. 358); that thither Sabeans proceeded on pilgrimage, and chanted prayers seven times a day, turning to the North (the Mount Meru, Kaph, Olympus, etc., etc.) (See Palgrave, Vol. II., p. 264). Abd Allatif says curious things about the Sabeans and their books. So does Eddin Ahmed Ben Yahya, who wrote 200 years later. While the latter maintains "that each pyramid was consecrated to a star" (a star regent rather), Abd Allatif assures us "that he had read in Sabean books that one pyramid was the tomb of Agathodaemon and the other of Hermes" (Vyse, Vol. II., p. 342). "Agathodaemon was none other than Seth, and, according to some writers, Hermes was his son," adds Mr. Staniland Wake in "The Great Pyramid," p. 57. Thus, while in Samothrace and the oldest
”
”
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (The Secret Doctrine - Volume II, Anthropogenesis)
“
irritatingly moralistic. Democratic globalism sees as the engine of history not the will to power but the will to freedom. And while it has been attacked as a dreamy, idealistic innovation, its inspiration comes from the Truman Doctrine of 1947, the Kennedy inaugural of 1961, and Reagan’s “evil empire” speech of 1983. They all sought to recast a struggle for power between two geopolitical titans into a struggle between freedom and unfreedom, and yes, good and evil. Which is why the Truman Doctrine was heavily criticized by realists like Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan—and Reagan was vilified by the entire foreign policy establishment for the sin of ideologizing the Cold War by injecting a moral overlay. That was then. Today, post-9/11, we find ourselves in a similar existential struggle but with a different enemy: not Soviet communism, but Arab-Islamic totalitarianism, both secular and religious. Bush and Blair are similarly attacked for naïvely and crudely casting this struggle as one of freedom versus unfreedom, good versus evil. Now, given the way not just freedom but human decency were suppressed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the two major battles of this new war, you would have to give Bush and Blair’s moral claims the decided advantage of being obviously true. Nonetheless, something can be true and still be dangerous. Many people are deeply uneasy with the Bush-Blair doctrine—many conservatives in particular. When Blair declares in his address to Congress: “The spread of freedom is … our last line of defense and our first line of attack,” they see a dangerously expansive, aggressively utopian foreign policy. In short, they see Woodrow Wilson. Now, to a conservative, Woodrow Wilson is fightin’ words. Yes, this vision is expansive and perhaps utopian. But it ain’t Wilsonian. Wilson envisioned the spread of democratic values through as-yet-to-be invented international institutions. He could be forgiven for that. In 1918, there was no way to know how utterly corrupt and useless those international institutions would turn out to be. Eight decades of bitter experience later—with Libya chairing the UN Commission on Human Rights—there is no way not to know. Democratic globalism is not Wilsonian. Its attractiveness is precisely that it shares realism’s insights about the centrality of power. Its attractiveness is precisely that it has appropriate contempt for the fictional legalisms of liberal internationalism. Moreover, democratic globalism is an improvement over realism. What it can teach realism is that the spread of democracy is not just an end but a means, an indispensable means for securing American interests. The reason is simple. Democracies are inherently more friendly to the United States, less belligerent to their neighbors and generally more inclined to peace. Realists are right that to protect your interests you often have to go around the world bashing bad guys over the head. But that technique, no matter how satisfying, has its limits. At some point, you have to implant something, something organic and self-developing. And that something is democracy. But where? V. DEMOCRATIC REALISM The danger of democratic globalism is its universalism, its open-ended commitment to human freedom, its temptation to plant the flag of democracy everywhere. It must learn to say no. And indeed, it does say no. But when it says no to Liberia, or Congo, or Burma, or countenances alliances with authoritarian rulers in places like Pakistan
”
”
Charles Krauthammer (Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics)
“
How you journal things, how you cross reference, how you present things, how you inspire your crew, how you inspire other people around you, how you inspire yourself—it’s all creative. And if you say you’re not creative, look at how much you’re missing out on just because you’ve told yourself that. I think creativity is one of the greatest gifts that we’re born with that some people don’t cultivate, that they don’t realize it could be applied to literally everything in their lives.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
[‘1,000 True Fans’ by Kevin Kelly] was one of the seminal articles that inspired me to really build amazing material, rather than just recycling what else was out there. I knew that if I had 1,000 true fans, then not only would I be able to live doing the things I wanted, but I would be able to turn that into 2,000, 5,000, 10,000—and that is exactly what happened.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
Peter’s breathing exercise focuses on expanding the lungs with fast, large inhales. His affirmational mantra, which he repeats a number of times, is “I am joy. I am love. I am gratitude. I see, hear, feel, and know that the purpose of my life is to inspire and guide the transformation of humanity on and off the Earth.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
Yes, trying new things may be scary, maybe even unrealistic. But do you really want to live your entire life without being able to look back at how many obstacles you have overcome? Sometimes, you need to briefly step out of the real world to give yourself the inspiration you can’t find anywhere else; set your own boundaries for what is real to you.
”
”
Michelle Fridman (Future Titans)
“
Son las elecciones que hacemos las que determinan quiénes somos.
”
”
Anna Zaires (Titan's Addiction (Wall Street Titan, #2))
“
Dostoevsky is a literary titan, and in some ways this can be the kiss of death, because it becomes easy to regard him as yet another sepia-tinted Canonical Author, belovedly dead. His works, and the tall hill of criticism they’ve inspired, are all required acquisitions for college libraries … and there the books usually sit, yellowly, smelling the way really old library books smell, waiting for somebody to have to do a term paper. Dahlberg is mostly right, I think. To make someone an icon is to make him an abstraction, and abstractions are incapable of vital communication with living people.
”
”
David Foster Wallace
“
Many writers tie their writing ability to some kind of occult influence. Robertson belongs to a much larger pattern in the world of letters that Jeffrey Kripal has charted in his book Mutants and Mystics—science-fiction and comic book writers inspired in their work by paranormal and “psychic” experiences.5 Robertson reported the distinct sensation when he was setting words to page that he was channeling, in the words of one friend, “some discarnate soul, some spirit entity with literary ability, denied physical expression, [which] had commandeered his body and brain.”6 When poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote to Robertson in the aftermath of the Titanic tragedy to ask him about it, Robertson replied: As to the motif of my story, I merely tried to write a good story with no idea of being a prophet. But, as in other stories of mine, and in the work of other and better writers, coming discoveries and events have been anticipated. I do not doubt that it is because all creative workers get into a hypnoid, telepathic and percipient condition, in which, while apparently awake, they are half asleep, and tap, not only the better informed minds of others but the subliminal realm of unknown facts. Some, as you know, believe that in this realm there is no such thing as Time, and the fact that a long dream can occur in an instant of time gives color to it, and partly explains prophecy.7
”
”
Eric Wargo (Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious)
“
Away deep in the aim to study himself in the school of the land his ancestors' gravestones flowered, Rip planned to burn his oil on the journey for growth by the hike, the thumb, the hitch, the rod, the freight, the rail, and he x'd New York on a map and pencilled his way to and into and through and under and up and between and over and across states and capitals and counties and cities and towns and villages and valleys and plains and plateaus and prairies and mountains and hills and rivers and roadways and railways and waterways and deserts and islands and reservations and titanic parks and shores and, ocean across to ocean and great lakes down to gulfs, Rip beheld the west and the east and the north and the south of the Brobdingnagian and, God and Christ and Man, it was a pretty damn good grand big fat rash crass cold hot pure mighty lovely ugly hushed dark lonely loud lusty bitchy tender crazy cruel gentle raw sore dear deep history-proud precious place to see, and he sure would, he thought, make the try to see it and smell it and walk and ride and stop and talk and listen in it and go on in it and try to find and feel and hold and know the beliefs in it and the temper and the talents in it and the omens and joys and hopes and frights and lies and laughs and truths and griefs and glows and gifts and glories and glooms and wastes and profits and the pulse and pitch and the music and the magic and the dreams and facts and the action and the score and the scope and span of the mind and the heart and spine and logic and ego and spirit in the soul and the goal of it.
”
”
Alan Kapelner (All the Naked Heroes: A Novel of the Thirties)
“
Staying close to the awesome splendor of nature is a habit of all great masters to remain inspired, focused and joyful in an era of tectonic change and immense upheaval. (They are also alone a lot, because rising to your greatest creative state only occurs in isolation.)
”
”
Robin S. Sharma (The Titan Playbook: Aim for Iconic, Rise to Legendary, Make History)
“
the fortification of positivity, inspiration and high hopes at a time of general negativity is mission-central to their campaign of producing sublime work and leading a life that surges with happiness, serenity and spiritual freedom.
”
”
Robin S. Sharma (The Titan Playbook: Aim for Iconic, Rise to Legendary, Make History)
“
Already contemplating the future, Rockefeller wanted to be surrounded by trustworthy people who could inspire confidence in customers and bankers alike.
”
”
Ron Chernow (Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.)
“
* Favorite documentary Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series inspired Adam to become a scientist, which is true for many of the top-tier scientists I’ve met and interviewed. [TF: Neil deGrasse Tyson has a revised version of Cosmos that is also spectacular.] “It was a really powerful, friendly way of being introduced to the complexities and wonders that were gripping to me as a kid. I watched it with my dad. It was great bonding for us. The way [Sagan] delivered it was just captivating, and it was really what sealed the deal for me that I wanted to be a scientist.” * Advice to your 30-year-old self? “I would say to have no fear. I mean, you’ve got one chance here to do amazing things, and being afraid of being wrong or making a mistake or fumbling is just not how you do something of impact. You just have to be fearless.” As context, Adam said the following earlier in our conversation: “I want to do fundamental breakthroughs, if possible. If you have that mindset, if that’s how you challenge yourself, that that’s what you want to do with your life, with your small amount of time that you have here to make a difference, then the only way to do it is to do the type of research that other people would think of as risky or even foolhardy. That’s just part of the game.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
Like Chuck Close says, ‘Inspiration is for amateurs—the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will—through work—bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
What makes him so problematic—and why he continues to inspire such ambivalent reactions—is that his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad.
”
”
Ron Chernow (Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.)
“
It was a perfect media package—ordinariness to connect them with the common reader, bravery to act as an inspiration, and a piece of music that could become a signature tune for the whole event. Whenever there was a funeral, a memorial service, or a fund-raising event, “Nearer, My God, to Thee” would be played and the story of the band’s final stand automatically brought to mind.
”
”
Steve Turner (The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic)
“
To remain authentic to your soul’s mission is a titanic task. Committing to shining the Light in such a dark world is something that only heroes do. Use your talents to serve the Light, regardless of the key that will open the pass to higher realms and the new earth.
”
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Monica Esgueva (7 Levels of Wisdom, The)
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One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died. I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand and he was out cold, convulsing on the floor.
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Mike Tyson
“
All journalists stand on the shoulders of giants, whether they admit it or not. In many cases, my book was vastly enhanced by the superlative work of other journalists, writers, and financial historians, who have themselves explored some of the subjects and themes I have tried to knit together in one sweeping narrative. Peter Bernstein is a huge inspiration, and his books were of tremendous help for some of the earlier chapters, as was Colin Read’s The Efficient Market Hypothesists. Lewis Braham’s biography of Jack Bogle is essential reading for anyone interested in the tumultuous life of Vanguard’s founder. Ralph Lehman’s The Elusive Trade was exhaustively detailed on the genesis of ETFs, and Anthony Bianco’s The Big Lie vividly tells the story of WFIA/BGI in the Pattie Dunn era. I have also learned an enormous amount from working with or admiring from afar financial journalists like John Authers, Gillian Tett, James Mackintosh, Philip Coggan, and Jason Zweig, as well as industry experts such as Deborah Fuhr, Ben Johnson, Eric Balchunas, and David Nadig. They are all titans upon whose shoulders I nervously perch.
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Robin Wigglesworth (Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever)
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The Titan Eos has a really unfair reputation. Essentially the Bridget Jones of Greek mythology, the rosy-fingered bringer of dawn is known for two things: opening the gates every morning so her brother Helios can drive the sun across the sky, and being cursed by Aphrodite with a really shit love life for all eternity. So, while most of Olympus is indulging in endless torrid love affairs and pairing up like penguins, the immortal Titan Eos dates, and fails, and dates, and fails. She’s the original rom-com heroine: forever focused on finding love, wearing shades of pink, seen by all the other gods as a bit of a desperate loser. But, of all the goddesses, I think Eos is the most powerful. Love is a courageous thing to pursue, and to me Eos represents hope, and resilience, and light in the darkest hour. She represents the strength to keep trying, even when you know you’re doomed. She represents new beginnings and refusing to accept defeat. She also represents the ability to change your husband into a cicada when he gets very old and kind of annoying. What could possibly be more inspiring than that?
”
”
Holly Smale (Cassandra in Reverse)
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Heracles: But you told me I couldn't die.
Prometheus: Death entered this world with the gods. You mortals fear death because you know that the gods, by being gods, are immortal. But everyone has the death he deserves. Their day will come too.
Heracles: What do you mean, Prometheus?
Prometheus: Not everything can be explained. But always remember that monsters do not die. What dies is the fear they inspire. So with the gods: when men no longer fear them, they will vanish.
Heracles: And will the Titans return then?
Prometheus: Rocks and forests don't return. They are. What has been will be.
Heracles: And yet you Titans were changed by the gods. You too, Prometheus.
Prometheus: Titan is a name, nothing more. Understand me, Heracles. The world has its seasons, like the fields, like the earth. Winter returns, summer returns. How can we say that the forest dies, or remains the same? Before long, men will be the Titans.
Heracles: We mortals?
Prometheus: You mortals—or immortals. The name doesn't matter.
”
”
Cesare Pavese
“
One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died. I was devastated and was going to use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand and he was out cold, convulsing on the floor.
”
”
Mike Tyson
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I said. “Give me the weight of the sky!
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
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The best version of me will be the day I leave this earth. Challenging myself every day is just part of the ascent to the apex of my journey.
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Scott Titan
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The Beginning Is “heart work,” not “head work” “So much of the job is more emotion and ‘heart work’ than it is ‘head work.’ The head comes in after, to look at what the heart has presented and to organize it. But the initial inspiration comes from a different place, and it’s not the head, and it’s not an intellectual activity.
”
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Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
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It took a Polish author to inspire this American Jew, who named his daughter for a Greek Titan before being killed by a Vietnamese mine in an effort to please his Marine father, who was once a sniper in Korea—and was undoubtedly still being pursued by the North Koreans across the wilderness of Scandinavia.
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Derek B. Miller (Norwegian by Night (Sigrid Ødegård #1))
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Many of the one-liners teach volumes. Some summarize excellence in an entire field in one sentence. As Josh Waitzkin (page 577), chess prodigy and the inspiration behind Searching for Bobby Fischer, might put it, these bite-sized learnings are a way to “learn the macro from the micro.” The process of piecing them together was revelatory. If I thought I saw “the Matrix” before, I was mistaken, or I was only seeing 10% of it. Still, even that 10%—“ islands” of notes on individual mentors—had already changed my life and helped me 10x my results. But after revisiting more than a hundred minds as part of the same fabric, things got very interesting very quickly. For the movie nerds among you, it was like the end of The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects: “The red door knob! The fucking Kobayashi coffee cup! How did I not notice that?! It was right in front of me the whole time!” To help you see the same, I’ve done my best to weave patterns together throughout the book, noting where guests have complementary habits, beliefs, and recommendations. The completed jigsaw puzzle is much greater than the sum of its parts.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
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Nul ne conteste l'appartenance de cette savane au Brésil et don droit d'en user comme bon lui semble. La querelle ne surgit que plus haut vers le nord.
Une belle question de droit international: à qui appartient une richesse essentielle à la survie générale de l'humanité ?
La forêt amazonienne est la première réserve de biodiversité de la planète (le cinquième des espèces de plantes, le cinquième des espèces d'oiseaux, le dixième des espèces de mammifères). Et, plus vaste foret du monde, elle freine les progrès de l'effet de serre.
Dans ces conditions, à qui appartient la forêt amazonienne?
Pour obtenir le poste de directeur général de l'organisation mondiale du commerce, le français Pascal Lamy était venu faire compagne au brésil. Quelqu'un l'interroger sur l'Amazonie: Faut-il envisager pour elle un statut particulier?
- la question pourrait être évoquée, répond le candidat.
Il croyait s'être montré prudent. Il vient d'allumer un incendie qui mettra des semaines à s'éteindre. Qu'en se le dise, s'exclame la presse de São Paolo et vocifèrent les politiques, jamais, au grand jamais le Brésil n'acceptera la moindre limitation de sa souveraineté sur quelque partie que ce soit de son territoire!
Combat des Titans: la plus grande ferme du monde face à la plus grande foret du monde. Pour nourrir la planète, faut-il l'asphyxier??
Et bataille de juristes: Amazonie, Antarctique: le plus chaud, le très froid; le très humide, le très glacé. Comment préserver ces deux espaces essentiels à notre survie??
”
”
Érik Orsenna (Voyage aux pays du coton: Petit précis de mondialisation)
“
Nul ne conteste l'appartenance de cette savane au Brésil et son droit d'en user comme bon lui semble. La querelle ne surgit que plus haut vers le nord.
Une belle question de droit international: à qui appartient une richesse essentielle à la survie générale de l'humanité ?
La forêt amazonienne est la première réserve de biodiversité de la planète (le cinquième des espèces de plantes, le cinquième des espèces d'oiseaux, le dixième des espèces de mammifères). Et, plus vaste foret du monde, elle freine les progrès de l'effet de serre.
Dans ces conditions, à qui appartient la forêt amazonienne?
Pour obtenir le poste de directeur général de l'organisation mondiale du commerce, le français Pascal Lamy était venu faire compagne au brésil. Quelqu'un l'interroger sur l'Amazonie: Faut-il envisager pour elle un statut particulier?
- la question pourrait être évoquée, répond le candidat.
Il croyait s'être montré prudent. Il vient d'allumer un incendie qui mettra des semaines à s'éteindre. Qu'en se le dise, s'exclame la presse de São Paolo et vocifèrent les politiques, jamais, au grand jamais le Brésil n'acceptera la moindre limitation de sa souveraineté sur quelque partie que ce soit de son territoire!
Combat des Titans: la plus grande ferme du monde face à la plus grande foret du monde. Pour nourrir la planète, faut-il l'asphyxier??
Et bataille de juristes: Amazonie, Antarctique: le plus chaud, le très froid ; le très humide, le très glacé. Comment préserver ces deux espaces essentiels à notre survie??
”
”
Érik Orsenna (Voyage aux pays du coton: Petit précis de mondialisation)
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Never be afraid of someting new.
Remember,amateurs built the ark, Profesionals built the titanic
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David Roads
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Following our dreams is important because we live once.
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Alpha Titans
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As he said, “It is chiefly to my confidence in men and my ability to inspire their confidence in me that I owe my success in life.”17 He liked to note that Napoleon could not have succeeded without his marshals.18 Free of an autocratic temperament, Rockefeller was quick to delegate authority and presided lightly, genially, over his empire, exerting his will in unseen ways.
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Ron Chernow (Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.)
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Why Consider Fasting? Dom has discussed the idea of a therapeutic “purge fast” with his colleague Dr. Thomas Seyfried of Boston College. Per Dom: “If you don’t have cancer and you do a therapeutic fast 1 to 3 times per year, you could purge any precancerous cells that may be living in your body.” If you’re over the age of 40, cancer is one of the four types of diseases (see Dr. Peter Attia on page 59) that will kill you with 80% certainty, so this seems like smart insurance. There is also evidence to suggest—skipping the scientific detail—that fasts of 3 days or longer can effectively “reboot” your immune system via stem cell–based regeneration. Dom suggests a 5-day fast 2 to 3 times per year. Dom has done 7-day fasts before, while lecturing at the University of South Florida. On day 7, he went into class with his glucose between 35 and 45 mg/dL, and his ketones around 5 mmol. Then, before breaking the fast, he went to the gym and deadlifted 500 pounds for 10 reps, followed by 1 rep of 585 pounds. Dom was inspired to do his first 7-day fast by George Cahill, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, who’d conducted a fascinating study published in 1970* wherein he fasted people for 40 days.
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Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
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It was left to Senator Isidor Rayner to conclude the hearings by saying: “As the ship was sinking, the strains of music were wafting over the deck. … It was a rallying cry for the living and the dying - to rally them not for life, but to rally them for their awaiting death. Almost face to face with their Creator, amid the chaos of this supreme and solemn moment, in inspiring notes the unison resounded through the ship. It told the victims of the wreck that there was another world beyond the seas, free from the agony of pain, and, though with somber tones, it cheered them on to their untimely fate. As the sea closed upon the heroic dead, let us feel that the heavens opened to the lives that were prepared to enter. “…If the melody that was rehearsed could only reverberate through this land ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ and its echoes could be heard in these halls of legislation, and at every place where our rulers and representatives pass judgment and enact and administer laws, and at every home and fireside…and if we could be made to feel that there is a divine law of obedience and of adjustment…far above the laws that we formulate in this presence, then, from the gloom of these fearful hours we shall pass into the dawn of a higher service and of a better day, and then…the lives that went down upon this fated night did not go down in vain.
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Charles River Editors (The Titanic and the Lusitania: The Controversial History of the 20th Century’s Most Famous Maritime Disasters)
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After Steve left, Bill turned to me and said, “Boy, is he arrogant.” When Steve came by our booth again later, he walked up to me and said of Bill: “Boy, is he arrogant.” I remember being struck by this clash-of-the-titans moment. I was amused by the fact that each man could see ego in the other but not in himself.
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Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)